DAM – It’s About More Than Flaunting Your Assets

We summarize the wise words of James Naylor, Group Publishing Systems Manager at Slimming World in his presentation at DAM Europe 2018 on their implementation of censhare, its impact so far, and their plans for the future.

  1. chevron left iconDAM – It’s About More Than Flaunting Your Assets
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Lucy Campbell-WoodwardSeptember 3, 2019
  • Digital Asset Management
  • Content Management

It’s an extremely beneficial trait to go looking for the potential to add value when already spending precious time and resources on a technology or service. What more can it do for me, or can I do with it? There is always the possibility of a nice surprise when you are open to the law of unintended consequences.

This is exactly what James Naylor has done, and is still doing, in his role as Group Publishing Systems Manager at Slimming World, the UK’s leading weight loss organization with almost a million members and thousand of groups across the country. Its magazine has become the third most actively purchased magazine in the country, signalling successful growth since its foundation 50 years ago an incredible reach.

After his first year of implementing the censhare Digital Asset Management (DAM) platform at Slimming World, James took to the stage at DAM Europe 2018 by Henry Stewart Events in London to tell the audience just how much impact the system had made, not only on tidying up image storage, but in aiding collaboration, content creation and project ideation and management.

But his presentation does not just cover the beginning of Slimming World’s journey with its DAM. Entitled ‘DAM is for life, not just for Pictures’, James’ presentation went on to explore digital asset management as the starting point for an organization, as well as an end point, when it comes to the creative process. It may now be over a year old, but James’ presentation is still highly relevant to those wanting to dig a little deeper into the practice of digital asset management, its current use cases, and consider its future potential for their organization.

His presentation takes the viewer through three stages, including:

  • Moving the company psychologically into DAM – Slimming World, like most similar companies, is an established institution with TWWDT* in place. Challenging that can be difficult so content management leaders have to find ways of bringing teams over to the DAM side.
  • Enhance the DAM – Naylor is keen that we should think beyond images when it comes to DAM. He explores the potential for the system to keep contracts, content links and features interlinked so they become useful, not as markers from the past, but resources for the future.
  • DAM as a foundation, not a conclusion – the final piece of the puzzle is to realize that a DAM can be the start of the content creation process, not the end. Naylor explores its extensive potential as a project planning tool, helping teams come together to build assets into a project and then track its progress through task completion.

To discover in more detail how Slimming World’s James Naylor expands the DAM universe for content creation as well as management, view the presentation here.

*TWWDT – The Way We Do Things

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Lucy Campbell-Woodward
Lucy is Head of Marketing for censhare, and leads the global team in the aligned planning and implementation of censhare's marekting strategy. Having joined the team in 2017, Lucy has played a pivotal role in the censhare Marketing team for a good few years now, and stepped up into a leadership role in 2022.

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